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Three Skin Mysteries Solved

Veteran airline captain Jack L. had lived through it all, from engine fires and locked landing gear to busted hydraulics and deadly wind shear. No matter how grave the danger, he never lost his cool, never produced a bead of sweat. Oddly, though, the forehead of this man of steel broke out in herpes blisters whenever he flew over a particular canyon. What was going on?

Kathy R's career as an investment banker in New York was taking off as spectacularly as her social life. Attractive and athletic, she was never wanting for party invitations or dates. Indeed, her boyfriends changed with the seasons. She seemed to get everything she wanted -- except to be rid of a stubborn case of adult acne. She'd been to several top dermatologists and used the best acne medicines, but nothing worked for her.

Helen S., a young stay-at-home mom with a new baby, really had her dermatologist scratching his head. The raw, oozing, red rash was clearly recognizable as eczema. But why was it only in one place - the fourth finger on her left hand? Located right under a gold ring, could it have been caused by a gold allergy? Not likely. She had gold rings on other fingers, and they were fine.

Jack, Kathy, and Helen came from very different of walks of life, but they shared a common problem: their skin served as billboards for unresolved emotional and psychological issues. Conventional medical therapies either failed to improve their conditions or worked for six months to a year, then became ineffective. Each of these people was fortunate enough to find a practitioner who understood the powerful connection between mind and skin.

In Jack's case, psychotherapy performed under hypnosis revealed that a friend had died in a plane crash there - and that this man, a fellow pilot, had been filling in because Jack had called in sick. Jack felt responsible for his friend's death. But once he allowed himself to feel his grief and guilt - feelings that he'd suppressed because they were too painful -- his herpes outbreaks stopped.

During psychotherapy, Kathy mentioned that her acne flared up whenever a boyfriend got too close. It was as if her skin was trying to protect her. What was she so afraid of? A memory lay forgotten in her subconscious, but it was far from dormant. She recalled a menacing man who had lived next door to her when she was a child. Persistent fear of this man was preventing Kathy from forming a long-term relationship. Once she saw the connection, her skin cleared up, and her love live blossomed.

Helen's finger grew worse and worse. She got no relief from the usual eczema medicines. She had forgotten the episode when she came to see me years later feeling depressed. She recalled that her baby had had severe colic, crying virtually nonstop for over a year. Her workaholic husband was unhelpful and emotionally unresponsive. In this tormenting situation, her skin gave voice to a desire she felt she could not admit to herself or express directly: "Get me out of this marriage." Finally, her wedding ring had to be cut off. Her skin had, at least symbolically, found a way out.

For .more information see my site and my book Skin Deep: A Mind/Body Program for Healthy Skin. A free e-book version is available there.

Thank you so much for this article. I have had horrible persistent rosacea that started when my marriage became intolerable. I tried everything to clear it up, but then I realized it was from the emotional stress. In one month I will be living in a new place, and I have been feeling better than ever since filing for divorce. My skin is also starting to clear up. Emotional problems do show up on the skin.

I lived with a partner for 12 years. He left me apparently because we had grown apart, not because of the 22 year old coworker that was throwing herself at him. Who he was dating within weeks and married to less than two years latter.
Six years before our break up I had a ring made for him, he had designed it, which he wore constantly for those years. To his annoyance I never got round to having the ring engraved mainly because it was always on his finger.
However 12 months after our split I ran into him and after showing my horror at his distressing weight loss, he was always thin, now you could see his ribs through his tee shirt and he looked like he had aged 5 years. He pointed out that he was not wearing the ring. He had developed a rash, as unexplainable as his weight loss, under the ring which had not cleared up, so he had taken the ring off, it then became infected and it had to be treated with antibiotics. My mind said 'psychosomatic' but I said nothing to him as his arms trembled, and he repeated that he hoped I didn't hate him. Hmmm.
I could never figure out, was it his mind saying let the past go and move on, when he seemingly had already done so, what with the new girls name tattooed from wrist to elbow and their engagement. Guilt at his treatment of me, hence the weight loss, which he couldn't loss when he was going to the gym and cycling to work. Although I don't believe for one minute he physically cheated on me with her. Emotionally yes, he did. We had never fought in our relationship, and had both always been very supportive of each other. Although he pretty much just walked out, didn't believe in working on the relationship, 'you shouldn't have to work on a relationship' he announced ' I still love you but the spark has gone'.
Or could the skin reaction be something else. So I find your post, interesting, however it has brought this instance to mind, and with it unanswered questions.

Sorry to hear about the situation. If he was that naive about the need to work on relationships, it was doomed regardless.

What was particularly striking about the woman I wrote about was the absence of reaction to other gold rings. Although allergies can also have a major emotional component. People with multiple personalities can have an allergy in one personality that vanishes in another.

Her accountant husband was, as usual with accountants, extremely helpful and emotionally demonstrative.

Yeah, "accountants" are stereotypically the opposite, but did you have to mention the profession of her husband to add to the stereotype? Couldn't you have said "her workaholic husband" (if he was a workaholic)?

Amen! Re :geeks. I wonder about a chicken/egg issue. Is having acne conducive to working on one's computer skills rather than one's social skills? Certainly any anxiety can trigger acne and acne can heighten pre-existing emotional issues.

It's great to read a story about hypnosis being used to help people make significant changes in their wellness. The public is still woefully misinformed about hypnotism and what it really has to offer each of us. Forty-five years after Dave Elman's book on hypnotism was published, which has transcripts of sessions where he helped people with stuttering, rosacea, phobias, and more, hypnotism is still scoffed at by many in the medical and therapeutic communities. As professionals like yourself share your stories, I think that will change.

Over the thirty years I've been doing this work here in Boston, I've found greater and greater openness in the medical community. Institutions like the Massachusetts General Hospital invite me to come in and lecture to their residents. It just takes one successful treatment of a warts or eczema patient for that doc to continue to refer people.

Part of it is having more and more controlled studies written up in medical journals, part is building the personal relationships. My own approach has been to prioritize public education as it is as often the patient who suggests bio-behavioral techniques to the docs as the other way around.